


Mollycross

by Slantedlight (BySlantedlight)



Category: The Professionals
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-31 00:14:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BySlantedlight/pseuds/Slantedlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The lads find themselves on a case in the wilds of East Anglia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mollycross

"'s not our job, this," Doyle said for what felt like the tenth time that hour. Bodie ignored him again, concentrating on the road which was straight and flat enough, but dropped disconcertingly on either side into the fields. The sun was low, the light grey, and he was admittedly bored enough that he just might go over the edge if only to generate some excitement. Or maybe to shut Doyle up.

"The Calham case'll break while we're away, you know that don't you? Or Lewis's op'll make the connection with Milan and _he'll_ be sent off to the sunshine while we're rotting in bloody..." He paused and looked around. "Are we even still _in_ Norfolk?"

"Back in Cambs I think," Bodie ventured cheerily. Maybe a bit of Doyle-baiting would liven things up. "The Fens stretch all over there."

Sure enough, Doyle gave him a sour look. "Thank you, Mr Baedecker..."

"Was out here with a bird once, the fabulous Maggie, and she..."

"...told you to sod off as well?"

Bodie grinned, risked a glance away from the road. "Now, now, Raymond, jealousy doesn't become you."

"My fist'll become you, if you don't keep your eyes where they should be!" 

Doyle had noticed it too then. Bodie thought, on the whole, that it wasn't so much the drop of the road, as the fact that there was a gentle cant to either side of it, so that he was almost steering just to stay on the tarmac at all. "Fancy living out here, eh?" he said sympathetically, now he knew that Doyle was just as unsettled as he was. "And I thought Africa was bad."

Appeased, Doyle looked away again from the road himself, out to the flat, endless landscape that stretched around them. Doyle was seeing what he saw, Bodie thought again, feeling disconcertingly comforted. There were trees, and there were houses but there was something sparse about them, as if they couldn't quite manage to hold the land together, might somehow be swallowed away into nothingness, and no one would ever know... _Night fancies in the daytime_ , Bodie scoffed, _you'll be wanting to hold Doyle's hand any minute now_. 

Well, he did, but that was something else entirely. He lapsed into a much happier silence.

"Village up ahead," Doyle said abruptly, nodding just to the right of the road. Sure enough a few lights were beginning to shine through the clear-skied dusk, flickering just slightly.

"Which one?"

"Buggered if I know," Doyle admitted, looking at him with a grin, and rustling the map that was spread across his legs. "You lost me three turns ago."

"You mean..."

"We're... approximately in East Anglia. Somewhere."

Bodie rolled his eyes. They'd never track down Letchworth and his shennanigans at this rate.

"Pack it in for the night?" Doyle asked, as they approached a signpost pointing eastwards towards "Hicksmeath and Waddle", one of them presumably the huddle of electricity that was growing brighter as the evening drew shorter. "There's bound to be a pub here, since there's nothing else."

"Sounds good to me." It did sound good - he felt like they'd been driving for weeks, doing nothing but meander up and down tiny roads, stopping to question the odd local but always, _always_ in the car. What he needed was some exercise, and if the best he could manage was fucking Doyle in a room up above some pub - well, the world wouldn't be too bad after all. He slid to a stop beside the turning. "D'you wanna call it in to Cowley?"

Doyle frowned at him but reached for the transmitter, fiddling with the dial when he realised the frequency was out. Cowley's voice, when they heard it, was softened by the buzz of distance and a poor connection, only just audible. You'd think he'd have given them one of those fancy car phones for something like this, but no...

"Aye well, keep at it," Cowley said, when Doyle had explained the situation, and despite his own impatience Bodie half-smiled at Doyle's exaggerated wince, at the way he screwed up his face, closed his eyes and let his head drop back against the headrest. "All's quiet here, and I want Letchworth found. He's out there somewhere, planning something…"

"Sir..."

"This is our only lead and I want it followed up, 4.5! Report back in when you have something for me. Out."

Back to the sour face again...

"Never mind mate. It's not as if we can follow much up at this time of night. Could ask some subtle questions in the pub, maybe..."

"On expenses of course," Doyle suggested, brightening.

"Of course. After all, we'll be working, and you've got to keep your informers well-lubricated if you want them to be any use to you..."

"Hicksmeath and Waddle?"

"Hicksmeath and Waddle," Bodie confirmed, putting the car in gear, and making the turn with a grin. "And if you're very lucky, I'll see what use you are to me later as well..."

o0o

"We don't do rooms, I'm afraid."

"What, not..?"

"Who'd want to come out here?" the publican asked, reasonably enough, Bodie thought. "The nearest place'd be up to Holbeach."

"Holbeach?"

"Take you about half an hour, but you'll find something there. If you go back to the main road, and..."

"There's always Annie's place," a voice interrupted firmly, and Bodie looked up at the woman who'd come to stand beside them at the bar. She was all red lipstick and dyed blonde hair, trenchcoat pulled smartly around her as if she'd just come in.

"Now Cath..."

"She keeps it ready for guests, although it might be a little cold until you get the heating on. I've got the key somewhere here..." Without waiting for their nod, she started rummaging around in an immense leather handbag.

"Is it close?" Bodie asked the bent head, and was rewarded with a beaming smile. 

"Ten minutes up the road, and it's very modern, got all the amenities - gas central heating, shower. There's a log fire if you like that sort of thing, and if you were staying more than one night I could do you a bit of a discount."

Abruptly Bodie decided that he'd had enough driving for one day. "Staggering distance to the pub?" he asked, smiling back at her, all warmth and charm.

"Just across the fields, as long as you keep out of the ditches." She dangled the keys in front of him and tilted her head to one side, golden wedding ring pointedly in sight, and Bodie's smile widened.

"We'll take it." Doyle twisted the keys from her fingers. "How do we get there?"

"Cath..."

Bodie frowned and looked at the publican. "It's not some barn with a fire and a dripping tap, is it?"

The man paused a moment, frowning in his turn at "Cath". "It's fine," he said at last, "But this isn't the bloody tourist board..."

"Nothing wrong with helping a couple of strangers, is there?" Cath rolled her eyes at him, and turned back to Bodie. "Anyone would think I was chasing people away, not bringing him the extra custom. You'll be wanting food, I expect?"

Bodie nodded happily, having already seen the chalkboard to one side of the bar. 

"Well they do a very nice dinner here," Cath said confidingly, "I'd recommend the beef pudding. Or the fish supper."

"Sounds good to me," Doyle grinned, and turned to the bar. "How about one of each, and a couple of pints of..." he scanned the taps, "Wherry?"

"Ah, good man!" Bodie slapped him cheerfully on the back. The night was definitely improving.

"How do we find this place then, love?" Doyle asked, with an amused glance at Bodie. 

"Follow the road out of the village, take the first left down the single track road, and then the first left off that. There should be signs for "Mollycross Cottage", but they're easy to miss in the dark. You can't miss the cottage itself, it's the only one out there."

"Left and left again - sounds simple enough."

"Oh, it is. Annie's had it as a summer let for five years now, she likes it all kept straightforward."

"Friend of yours?" Bodie asked conversationally, not caring about anything much after his first mouthful of Wherry, and hearing the clattering of dishes from the pub kitchen. 

"Yes, from Waddle - bred and born. Moved to London and met her husband, now they're both in Norwich, with the Poly. She comes back though, visits her mum..."

"Well, we mustn't keep you, Mrs..." Doyle interrupted, in his polite-to-the-public voice.

"Howatt." Cath smiled again, took the cheque that Doyle had written out for her, and handed him a small pile of leaflets and a receipt. "Cath Howatt. My name's on the brochure, and my phone number if you have any problems, but it's a lovely little place. And if you decide to stay on for another day or two, give me a call and we can settle up for it tomorrow."

"Right. And thanks!" Bodie watched her go appreciatively. Nice legs, and a nice sway to her trenchcoat...

" _Bo_ -die!"

"What?" he grinned, at peace with the world. Letchworth could take a running jump tonight, he decided. He'd keep his ears open, let his brain stew on it all so far, but for now it was well after half five and he didn't care what Cowley said - they were off duty. "There are worse places to be on a cold October night, eh?"

Doyle stared at him in disbelief for a moment, then let a slow smile spread across his face. Bodie felt his stomach jump up and turn over, a pleasant anticipation which made his own grin even wider. He drained the last of his pint, and held it up to the new girl who'd just slid behind the bar. "Reckon I'll try the beef pudding..."

o0o

"You sure she said left? She didn't say right?" Bodie leaned forward and peered over the steering wheel and up towards the sky. He didn't think he'd ever seen that many stars before.

"Oi, watch the... _road!_ "

"Keep your knickers on, it's fine. But are you sure..."

"There!" Doyle swung around in his seat, watching the left hand turn go past them. "Told you to watch the road..."

Bodie brought the car to a lurching stop, earning himself another glare, and reversed neatly back to the turn off. This road was even rougher, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the _shusshing_ sound coming from under the Capri was grass bristling up against the exhaust system.

"There!" Doyle said again, after five minutes in the quiet night, "That's got to be it."

There was indeed a dark shape looming out of the night, a deeper pitch that blotted out the stars along their horizon - _who ever saw stars on the horizon_? Bodie swung the car towards it, and the headlights flashed across a sign on the whitewashed wall. _Mollycross Cottage_. 

About fucking time.

"Funny idea of ten minutes, she had," he grumbled, "And you'd better not 'ave lost the bloody keys!"

"We're probably about ten minutes walk be'ind the pub," Doyle said, waving the two huge keys ostentatiously in the air so that they jangled deeply against each other. "Road goes round the moon to get here, thassall."

Bodie stopped abruptly, halfway down the path and looked up. "Moon?"

"It's a _saying_ , pillock. Didn't you learn anything at school?"

"Not to goose the boys at the back of the bike shed," Bodie said immediately, managing to reach out and do the same to Doyle, despite being somewhat off balance. 

"Never 'eard it called that before." Doyle's hand was warm around his arm, steadying him, and Bodie could hear the smile in his voice.

"I'd show you what else you can do with it too, if I wasn't so knackered."

"And pie-eyed, you lecherous inebriate..."

"Ah, you do say the nicest things..." Bodie tried fluttering his lashes, realised that it was too dark for Doyle to see them anyway, and looked back up at the stars. "You don't get this in town," he said more soberly, pulling Doyle towards him and sighing happily at the warmth that spread down his front. He put his arms all the way around him, and they stood for a moment, looking up.

"Bodie..."

"Hmmn?" All those tiny stars and planets and galaxies and... and... whatever else was up there. Satellites? Falling stars? No, they were meteors. Meteor _ites_. Mete _ors_...

"Bod- _ie_..."

"What?"

"Can we go inside before we freeze into some giant pornographic ice lolly?" But Doyle squeezed Bodie's thigh with one hand as he said it and wriggled free.

"No pornographic lollies tonight..." Bodie said sadly but honestly. He was sleepy...

"Bloody 'ell, will you _move_?"

"Hmmn..." He was at that perfect state of being drunk where the world was just a little fuzzy at the edges, but hadn't started spinning yet. He wanted to be warm and still in bed, to float off to sleep, so _tired_...

He giggled a bit when Doyle dropped the keys, and got in a good grope when he bent over to pick them up, and then more giggling when Doyle hit his head on the door in surprise and started to swear. Yeah, it was a good night...

The cottage _was_ cold, but the thermostat was right there on the kitchen wall as they went in, so he knocked it on and turned it up, blinking in the bright light as he did so. There was just one room off the kitchen - the living room of course, with its cold open fire - and a narrow staircase that took them upstairs and opened into two bedrooms and a bathroom. He ignored the room with the single bed, and dropped his bag on the window side of the double. There were the stars again...

There was a click as the bedside lamp was turned on, and the stars vanished. Never mind. It was time for bed, time for bed... He sat down, lay back and closed his eyes, just for a minute...

"Bodie, get undressed..."

"Why? 's too cold. Warm up first..." He was tired, and the bed was soft, and...

"Oh no you don't..."

Bodie felt his shoes pulled off, and then his arms were grabbed and he was being pulled upright again. "Sod off, Ray..."

"So 'elp me if you don't get undressed I'll sleep in the other room..."

That made him open his eyes. Waste an opportunity like this? Doyle wouldn't... Well the bugger probably would, if he was really pissed off.

But Doyle was looking at him with an indulgent twist to his lips, and that made Bodie smile again, even as he started to pull off his jacket.

"Should never have let you drive, should I?"

"Might be a _touch_ over the limit..." Bodie admitted. "'s alright now though. Go to bed, yeah?"

Another smile, and hands reaching for his poloneck, stripping it up and off him, and then he was asleep.

o0o

He was woken by the sound of hoofbeats outside the window. He came to slowly, seeing the stars still sharp in the night sky, feeling Doyle's warmth pressed all along one side of him. Must be still dreaming, he thought vaguely, letting his eyes drop closed again, wiggling comfortably.

And that was a mistake, because he realised then that he rather desperately needed a piss. 

The hoofbeats came again, and now he _was_ awake, so he lifted his head to listen properly. Bit odd that, this late at night...

He'd made the effort to get out of bed, stagger across the hallway and to the bathroom when he heard the horses closer still, _whickering_ now, loudly in the night. Two of them, he thought, finishing at the toilet and pausing to listen again, balanced with his knuckles against the wall. Sounded like they were... front or back of the house?

He crossed back into the bedroom, walked softly past the bed and to the window. More stars, and a flat, dark world below them.

"Bodie?"

"Yeah..." He kept his voice hushed, though there was no one there but the two of them. 

"You hear that?"

"Yeah. Sounds like horses."

There was a rustle of bedclothes, and Doyle was standing beside him at the window. 

"Bit odd innit? I thought we were the only place around 'ere?"

"Moonlight trot?"

"No moon" Doyle reminded him.

The whickering came again, louder this time, perhaps a little frantic, and they looked at each other. 

"Round the front," they said together, and Bodie turned again for the door.

"Um, Bodie?" Doyle had stopped, was pulling on his jeans in nothing but the starlight. "I know it's not cold inside, but..."

More hoofbeats, _definitely_ from the front of the house - up and down that track, perhaps, or... the same horses over and over, or more than two? Doing up his trousers as they ran downstairs, Bodie tried to listen, tried to make sense of the noises. The horses called out again, louder, panicked. Rustlers? It probably wasn't unheard of out here in the sticks, there was a thriving black market down south.

Nothing. There was nothing to be seen from the front window of the cottage, though it overlooked the track.

"Must be out back after all," Doyle said, a dark shape against the window, turning to the kitchen again, heading for the back door, the back garden. It was stupid, they needed torches and thicker clothes against the cutting wind, and Doyle needed his gun which was still upstairs in its holster, but there was something about the pitch of the animals' voices, something about the...

Outside, under the stars, all was abruptly quiet but for the hissing and whirring of the wind across the fens. Bodie spun around, Browning in hand, trying to hear something, anything...

"I don't like this..." Doyle said, voice low.

"Yeah... Where's it coming from?"

"And why'd they stop?"

They listened again, straining their ears against the wind. Time passed.

"They've gone by - must have."

"Where to?"

"Dunno, but I know where I'm going, mate..."

"Back inside?" Bodie suggested, feeling the cut of the wind again now that he was still.

"Back inside..."

Doyle turned on the light and went straight to the kettle when they got back in, filling it with water, rummaging in the cupboards for mugs, teabags, and UHT milk. 

"What if there hadn't been any?" Bodie asked, distracted.

Doyle looked at him. "She said it 'ad all amenities," he said. "If that doesn't include teabags and milk then what does it include? D'you think...?"

Horses whickered loudly outside.

"Fuckin' 'ell..." Bodie turned back to the door, reached for the handle, then stopped. "Fuck it."

"They're out there somewhere..."

"Wind?"

"Must be, blowing the sound towards us and then away... Rum place, this. Probably two counties away."

"You don't think...?"

"Letchworth? I know he's into his ponies, but it'd be a bit of a coincidence, us stopping here right beside him."

They looked at each other, considering, then the kettle came to a boil, and Doyle turned away to pour the water. It would be a coincidence, but their lives were made of coincidences. What about their farce of a weekend away in the country at the Shaw's? Or Franz bloody Myer turning up when he was out on the river with what's-her-name? Some people won the pools on a regular basis, _they_ were trailed by villains and ne'er-do-wells. 

"Have a look tomorrow," Bodie said, taking a hot gulp of tea and feeling it all the way down his throat to his stomach. 

"If we do that we'll be stuck here overnight again, probably."

"What, alone together in an isolated house on the fens, where no one can hear you scream?" Bodie raised an eyebrow. 

"Sobered up then, have we?"

"Oh we have..." Bodie ran a speculative eye the length of Doyle. He was wearing shoes, jacket and jeans, and... nothing else. His breath caught at the thought, and he licked his lips to wet them, watching Doyle watching him. "Take your trainers off?"

Taking a last mouthful from his cup, Doyle heeled them off and stood there in front of him, thumbs hooked into the back of his jeans, feet firmly planted, legs slightly spread. Challenging, but then Doyle always was.

"Undo your trousers."

Every time, every time it happened he was amazed that all he had to do was ask, and Doyle would do... Well, he sometimes wondered what Doyle _wouldn't_ do...

"Upstairs..." he all but whispered, and Doyle, his Doyle, went. 

Not that Doyle was ever obedient for very long, and that, Bodie thought as he followed him up, the little flip back in his stomach again, was the best thing about him of all.

o0o

When next he woke the room was awash with high white light, and the sky through the window was a pale distant blue. Doyle's arm was heavy across his chest, their legs were tangled together, and there was a pleasantly stretched feel to his own body that made him close his eyes again and spend the next few minutes remembering and smiling inanely to himself. One day, he supposed, it would all grow old and commonplace, but for now... well, for now he'd enjoy it for what it was.

Beside him Doyle drew a deep, wakening breath and pressed his face into Bodie's neck, away from the light, tightening his arm around him at the same time, and moving his leg just enough that Bodie thrust upwards in involuntary reaction. A sudden chuff of breath gusted warm and moistly in his ear, and he moaned, not caring whether Doyle was amused or not. It tickled, it felt good, it aimed straight for his groin, and...

"Well good morning," Doyle said huskily, moving to lean up on one elbow, so Bodie turned his face towards him, cupped a hand around his head, and pulled them together, kissed him until they were both breathless and gasping for air, and reached for Doyle's prick. Doyle's hand closed around Bodie, and Bodie gasped at how good it felt, because it did, it always did, at the way Doyle knew exactly how to pull and where to squeeze and... He came hard, and felt Doyle moaning into him, felt him gasp and still, and the slickness of come between them, and then the weight of him, and the warmth and the glorious heavy darkness of...

The telephone beside the bed rang.

Bloody _hell_...

"D'you think he knows?" he asked, on the fourth ring, still breathing heavily, wondering if they could get away with ignoring it completely.

"Nah," Doyle's voice was muffled and just as uneven in the blankets, "He'd have called about five seconds sooner in that case..." But he reached out and fumbled for the receiver anyway, as Bodie'd known he would. "Yessir... Nossir... Been out for a run, sir..." 

Bodie nearly laughed out loud at that, managed to quiet himself just in time, though he still ended up with an elbow to his stomach. 

"Yessir..." Doyle winced and hung up the phone, turned onto his back and rubbed his eyes and face. "Bloody _Cowley_..."

"How the hell did he know where to get hold of us?"

"Phoned the pub in the village," Doyle said gloomily. "Uncle Lewis has taken a turn for the worse."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah - but he still wants us to 'ang around 'ere chasing up Letchworth unless he calls. One of us is to stay near a phone or the transmitter at all times..."

"How can we do that?" Bodie asked incredulously. "If he wants us out on the road..."

"Then we'll have the transmitter. Here and at the pub we'll be near a phone. Apparently."

"Apparently," Bodie mimicked, wrinking his face. "Ah well, ours not to wonder why..." Trouble was, he knew Doyle did. "Make us a cup of tea?"

o0o

The pale sky was deceiving - they'd slept in, and it was nearly eleven before they were out and about, walking across the fields to Hicksmeath and into the tiny local post office for a chat about the area for the "book" they were writing. They learned more about the local horse fairs than they'd ever wanted to know from one old man who kept them talking for nearly an hour without telling them about anything more recent than 1950, and about shire horses from a twelve year old girl who invited them out to see her pony. She sniffed haughtily when Doyle suggested she should be in school, and informed them that she attended "The Towers" which ran a much superior calendar to the council schools thereabouts.

Bodie was still chortling when they'd paid for their rather dusty postcards and stamps and stepped back into the cool sunlight, and he eyed _The Straw Bear_ with happy anticipation. Doyle couldn't argue lunch when they'd had no breakfast, and besides, at this rate it was _work_...

"Anyone'd think you were starving," Doyle said with a frown as they pushed open the door and paused to adjust to this new dim light. There was an older man behind the bar this afternoon wearing a bright white apron - and they settled themselves down at one end and made a show of opening their local map.

"Morning," the man said with a smile, coming to stand in front of them. "How'd you find Mollycross then, bor?" 

Bodie grinned. "D'you work for the tourist board as well?"

"Very nice..." Doyle cut in hurriedly, "... cosy..."

"Cosy, then? I hear you're writing a book about our little town?"

Despite himself Bodie's eyes widened just slightly. They'd only just come out of the post office and across the street...

"Yeah, tourist guide," Doyle said. "Fens, local stories, horses... Could you do a ploughman's and soup as well?"

"O'course I can. You're in the right place for horses then, at Mollycross. And what can I get you, sir?"

Bodie scanned the menu. "Steak and kidney pie?"

"Right you are." The man paused to shout through to the kitchen behind him, then gestured at the pumps.

Bodie nodded cheerfully, and watched as the Wherry was drawn again. "There are horses near Mollycross are there?"

"No, no! Not for many a year, though o'course John Danby was hung at the crossroads, and he were a toadsman and a half, they say. He lived at Mollycross o'course..."

"Hung at the crossroads?" Bodie asked, briefly fascinated, "What, back by the main road?"

"No, no," the man said again, nodding to a group of young men who'd just come in, and picking up half a dozen glasses. "Mollycross Gibbet, by the turning to your cottage. Used to be a crossroads there, though it only goes three ways since they built the Lunnon Road."

"What did John do to deserve that, then?"

"Oh, murder most foul," the barman said with a gleam in his eye, "A little girl it was, on her way home past Mollycross from work at Tusser's, and they do say he took her and chopped her up and ate her, for her body was never found. The whole willage went out to his place, dragged 'im out and tied 'im, and presented 'im to the magistrate. Tusser saw 'im hanged alright, and they put 'im in a gibbet at the crossroads as a warning to those who play with the devil..."

"Now Grandad, you're not boring these gentlemen with your old stories are you?" Cath Howatt appeared from the kitchen, lipstick and hair in place, balancing three plates and a large bowl of soup. "How're you finding the cottage?"

"Just getting them warmed up for tomorrow night," the old man said with a sly look. "Was just going to tell 'em to take a look at the bookshelves in Mollycross, if it's horses they're after."

"Oh yes, Anne was always one for the horses, and what with the history of the cottage and her moving to town she thought they'd suit best there."

"Books?"

"You take a look at them bookshelves," the old man said again, then leaned close for a final, gleeful whisper, "And walk home the long way past Mollycross Gibbet..."

"Oh, ignore 'im, there's nothing to see there anymore." Cathy rolled her eyes. "He likes to frighten the visitors... Everything alright at the cottage then?"

"Yeah, thought we might stay another night or two after all. D'you want us to settle up now?"

"Finish your lunch first," she said, generously Bodie thought, and left them to it to return to the kitchen.

The pie was good, and they sat quietly for a while, listening in to the conversation behind them, which was mostly concerned with who would score on Saturday night and how far they would get, chewing contentedly. 

Eventually Doyle pinched one of his last chips and leaned back thoughtfully against the wall. "We might be wasting our time here, you know."

"Oi! Yeah..." Bodie thought about it. "On the other hand, if Cowley _will_ send us to the back of beyond for no good reason, we might as well get a holiday out of it..." How long could he stretch it, this time alone with Doyle, just the two of them?

"You would," Doyle snorted, sipping at his beer. "Call this a holiday? I think we should check out that place behind the cottage - Tusser's did he call it? We _heard_ those horses, there's something up."

They'd seen the distant farm buildings that morning, rising in a low clutter against the sky. 

No holiday, then… Bodie nodded. "May as well drive down. Can always say we thought it was a through road."

"Might still be, 'e said it used to be a crossroads."

"About two hundred years ago, if he's talking about a gibbet there! And he also said there were no horses." 

"Maybe Letchworth's keeping it quiet. Be just like him to have a place in London and a secret horsestud as well."

"Alright for some…" 

"Yeah…" Doyle shot him a look, then glanced away out the window, "Be a very quiet life out here an' all – same boozer every night, same birds every night – no wonder _the farmer wants a wife_ …"

Bodie took a breath - _birds_ \- and tipped his head in acknowledgement. "Sounds dire - good cover for meeting all kinds of villains, though, breeding horses in the middle of nowhere." He swallowed the last of his beer, feeling suddenly restless again, wanting to be out in the open air, _moving_. There was too much time to think on this job, not enough distractions and moments of bright temptation – Doyle was right, they belonged in town, not mouldering away out here. "Come on then, let's get on with it!"

o0o

Tusser's Farm was perhaps a mile from their cottage, a gathering of half a dozen or so buildings, including one that was tall and strangely thin and grey, three flimsy storeys, all corrugated iron and broken windows. It loomed over everything else, even the farmhouse that had been painted a soft pink, and had almost more moss on the roof than tiles, creaking and rasping in the wind.

Parked in the middle of the farmyard was a very large, very red American car, with brand new licence plates. 

"'ey up!" Doyle nudged him, and he looked up from the vehicle to see a tall young man in a suit striding towards them, a frown on his face. 

"Good afternoon! Get held up did you? Or lost was it? Hard to find the place I know, but still, over an hour... Gareth Jones." He shook their hands perfunctorily, a bare touch before he put his hands on his hips and stared them up and down.

"Well, we're..."

"Only I was hoping to get back to town tonight, look you, so we might have to rush this a little. Won't take long to make up your mind - this place is a steal, a positive steal! Shall we see the house first, and then the stables?" He set off at a brisk pace back towards the bright red front door.

"It's very..."

"Goes back to the fifteen hundreds, as you will have seen, though of course it's been greatly modified since then - all mod cons!" He stopped abruptly to smile back at them with shark's teeth, so that Bodie also stopped suddenly, and felt Doyle's hands at his waist, as they collided. 

"Actually we'd like to see the stables first," Doyle interrupted, gesturing broadly around them. "If that's alright with you."

"The stables it is, then!" The man changed directions, heading to a low block on their left. "They can all be converted, of course into extra rooms for the hotel, and you'll find that the Americans will pay ridiculous prices to... er... sorry. You don't _sound_ American, see, so I was completely forgetting... Uh..." He swung around again suddenly at the door to the stables, and frowned at them. "I thought it was Mr and _Mrs_ Van der Lathen?"

"Ah, well..." Bodie began placatingly, "I don't think we're quite who you're expecting, but we _would_ like to see the stables..."

"You're not the hoteliers?" 

"Er no, but..."

"Well then what the bloody 'ell do you think you're doing wasting my time? It's nearly four o'clock and if they're not 'ere in another hour they won't be _coming_ until tomorrow, and I'll be _stuck_ in this dump another bloody night!"

"Er, Mr..?"

"What business is it of yours?" 

"Look, we just wanted to have a look around the stables for our book. See we're writing a..."

"I don't care if you're writing the bloody Bible! Talk to Hewitt and Jones Estate Agents in London, get some other poor idjit to show you the bloody stables! Now piss off!"

"Alright..." Doyle held out his arms peaceably, "We're going. You couldn't just tell us if this road goes through..?"

"Get out of it!"

"Look..."

"Ray!" Bodie tugged at his sleeve, seeing the man had no intention of reacting reasonably to anything. It wasn't worth a fight, not just yet. He pulled Doyle back to the Capri, scanning the farmyard with interest. Apart from the rattling wind, it all seemed quiet, empty, and yet there was _something_...

"Bit touchy, wasn't he?" Doyle said, as he got in and turned the ignition. He took several unnecessary attempts to turn the car around, so that they faced each building at least once. "There's something going on 'ere, I can smell it..."

"We're only after Letchworth..."

"Yeah well maybe we'll pick up something extra..."

"You're just rattled cos Dai back there rumbled us so quickly," Bodie said, grinning. 

"Maybe..." Doyle flashed him a guilty glance, "But you felt it as much as I did. There could be anything in those buildings, especially if they're supposed to be on the market. Good cover - they could have all sorts in and out of a place like that..."

"Yeah..." Bodie picked up the transmitter mike, "I'll call in Hewitt and Jones just in case. Wouldn't have thought you'd get many Welsh-London real estate agents hanging around in Norfolk..."

"Cambridgeshire you said," Doyle corrected absently, bringing the car to a stop. They'd turned left out of Tusser's, away from Hicksmeath, and the road beneath them had become ever rougher and more grass-covered, until just in front of them it had been fenced across. "Barbed wire out here? There's nothing to keep out, is there? I thought this place was all potatoes and wheat?"

"Looks fairly new," Bodie agreed, peering at it through the windscreen. "Let's see what we can find out tonight and come back tomorrow, when laddo should be gone."

"Have to be tomorrow night. If there is anyone there they'd be able to see us coming for miles in daylight."

"Yeah," Bodie nodded thoughtfully, "Good position all the way out here. Not exactly convenient for shopping though, is it?"

"We dunno what Letchworth's doing with it. Could be anything in those sheds."

"Including dust... Hello Alpha? About time 2.4! We need a C.R. check on a real estate company operating out of London..."

o0o

The Mollycross house books, which would have been fascinating if they really had been writing a history of the area, were about as useful as the village inhabitants had so far proved, tales of history and hauntings and horses long gone.

Bodie snatched one out of Doyle's hand just as he was about to send it flying across the living room, and replaced it carefully on the bookshelf. "Tut-tut, sunshine. Temper, temper!"

Doyle just glared at him. "Tell me _you're_ not pig-sick of this! Our best lead to Letchworth so far is hearing noises in the night, and seeing some suspicious-looking buildings we can't get near in broad daylight in case some Welsh tosspot spots us coming!"

"Sounds par for the course, old son. We've been on stakeouts in town that had dodgier premises..."

A deeper frown, darker. "You'd go along with anything, wouldn't you? Talk about _laissez faire_ …"

"Eh?" Bodie frowned in his turn, suddenly lost. "What are you on about now?"

"Forget it…Why don't we just go over tonight? See what's going on and _get on with it!_ "

Bodie shook his head. Much as he was itching for some action, it wasn't worth Cowley's displeasure if it did turn out to be Letchworth out there. "Because if Dai catches us at it he can claim we're trespassing and make up some credible excuse to stop us searching the place. If we wait until tomorrow, when he's supposed to be gone..."

"Yeah, yeah..." Doyle said disgustedly. He ran his fingers through his hair, gripping it tightly for a moment as if to pull out all his frustration with it. "Alright, I know." He closed his eyes, and Bodie could practically see him deflating, changing tack. "So what's on the menu for tonight then?"

Better, much better, as if they were back in synch again. "Funny you should say menu - we never did go shopping, did we?"

"Are you planning to try out everything that pub has to offer?" Doyle, who knew as well as he did that they'd never survive the night on the Cuppa Soup and crackers they'd found in the cupboards, looked amused.

Bodie did his best to look offended in return. "This is only the third time we've been there..."

"In less than two days!"

"Well if someone had thought to find a Co-op we wouldn't be forced to eat out on expenses now, would we? Besides..." Bodie grinned, and leaned over the back of the couch suddenly, ran his hands firmly from Doyle's shoulders, down his chest and stomach, and more slowly along his thighs to his knees. And then back up. "Got to keep my strength up, don't I?"

"Oh yeah?" Doyle's turn to thrust upwards, so that Bodie could see his cock outlined by the worn blue denim, creases like arrows stretching either side. "Feel like you're going to need it do you?"

"Not yet," Bodie snatched a kiss. "I might feel you later though, if you put your bloody shoes on and come to the pub now!"

Doyle grinned, but he got up and wriggled his feet into trainers, pulled his jacket from the back of the chair. "Walk it?"

"Yeah - I'm starting to seize up..."

"Sign of old age, that is."

"Ah, the voice of experience... Grab a couple of torches from the kitchen drawer, will you?"

There was a path of sorts running between the cottage and the nearest building in the village, which happened to be the pub. It stretched alongside one of the drainage ditches that criss-crossed the land for miles, carrying on under a bridge and through the village in one direction, and presumably out to Tusser's in the other. The fading sunset turned the water a pale pink and shadowed blue, and Bodie stopped to admire the sliver of crescent moon reflected in the still surface. Doyle bumped into him for the second time that day, and gave him a shove to get him going again.

"Imagine this place under a full moon," Bodie suggested, "The lonely cry of an owl..."

"...the squeal of a mouse as the owl dives for its supper..."

"Not an ounce of poetry in your soul!" Bodie glanced at him and sniffed. "All this around you, and you're thinking of food again..."

" _You..!_ "

They arrived at the pub breathless and laughing, to the surprise of an old couple who appeared at the door just as they were about to enter. They stood back to let them past, still jostling each other but trying to calm down, and were almost presentable when they actually stepped into the bar.

The girl was back tonight, the room nearly full. Friday night, Bodie realised, bloody Friday night. He and Doyle should have been out and about town with a couple of ravers, not stuck out here in the boonies. Then again... He watched as Doyle leaned forward over the bar to the girl, charming her with a smile and causing a group of three women in the corner of the room to pay him, or at least what they could see of him, much closer attention as well. The more they were out playing with birds the sooner that Doyle would pick one out to settle down with, and that would be that. He watched what the women were watching, and grinned inside. _Mine._ For now it's _mine_...

There was a table free by the back wall, buttressed from the three women by a group of bearded men playing dominoes, one of them Grandad. Bodie gave him a comfortable nod, and settled himself to wait for Doyle and his first pint.

It proved a relatively long wait, and Bodie'd just got interested in the dominoes when he finally arrived at the table. 

"Sorry mate, was having a chat with Sherry..."

"Yeah, I could see that!" He didn't mean it to come out so sharply, took a mouthful of beer to cover his own surprise. 

Doyle raised an eyebrow at him. "Was asking her what property prices are like out here. Told her I was thinking of finding a decent farm in this direction. She told me that Tussocks was up for sale..."

Bodie forgot his jealousy - _jealousy_? - and stared at him. "You mean Tusser's?"

"Yeah. Owner suddenly decided he wanted to move to Manchester to be near his daughter and grandkids. Shame - house has been in the family for generations, apparently..."

"'twas Tusser's built that place and Tusser's lived there ever since," said one of the men at the table beside them. "Young people now've got no sense o' responsibility..."

"'twasn't the mawther's fault, she married out o' town and that's all there is to it," said another. "It's up to the cousin, now, it passed to 'im and naught to do..."

"'ow you now goen, bor?" Grandad interrupted across him, "Did yew read those books?"

"Made a start," Bodie said, "Keep us going for a while, that lot. Did you know the Tussers well, then?"

"Oh, Jahn's an owd friend - used to make up four 'ere, didn' 'e?" Grandad appealed to his mates. "'e was a one for history an' all. He'll come to a funny end, same as they all do o'course. Yew been down the Gibbet yet?"

"Not to stop," Doyle admitted. "There's nothing there now, is there?"

The three old men looked at each other. "Not for a long while now," one said at last. "But once yew know it were there..."

"Imagination!" Bodie snorted, realising with a wince that he'd said it out loud.

Grandad frowned. "'magination it may be, but yew keep yersel' indoors tomorrer night, bor, yew keep yersel' indoors. Jahn's not happy! Yew playin' a piece George, or yew mardlin' all night?"

They returned to their game, pointedly ignoring their neighbours now, and Doyle looked at Bodie and opened his mouth, no doubt to tell him off, luckily just as their food arrived. 

"Why isn't John happy, and what's so special about tomorrow night?" he wondered more quietly, and this time it was the girl who'd brought their dinner who frowned at him.

"It's hallowe'en tomorrer," she said, placing two plates of chicken and chips on the table. "Yew don' wanner go out tomorrer..."

o0o

The cottage glowed warmly at them as they walked carefully back down the path, Doyle's arm around Bodie's shoulders in peaceful camaraderie. The wind was back, and clouds scudded across the thin slice of moon high above them. The drain was an inky black when their torches flashed across it, still and dark and deep.

They drank tea, and strode upstairs to bed with barely a word, Bodie feeling strangely calm and ready to be quiet. When Doyle pulled them together beneath the blankets, when their lips met and their breath touched, it seemed as if they kissed in slow motion. When he turned Doyle over, pressed himself, hot and slick and hard, inside him, it was as if he could feel it all over, feel every inch of Doyle around him and against him, more than ever before, and he groaned softly. 

Beneath him Doyle gasped, took a deep breath, and pushed backwards, impaling Bodie still further, still deeper, more firmly. Slowly Doyle moved until he was kneeling, right hand on the wall keeping them both in balance, left hand twisted behind to grip Bodie's arse as Bodie thrust slowly, and slowly again... Bodie reached a hand to Doyle's face, to his cheek, turning his head so that he could watch him, so that he could press his own face against Doyle's, and then he ran his other hand up the length of a tense thigh, up to Doyle's prick which was hard, so hard, and Doyle whimpered when he grasped hold of it, and pushed into his hand, so that Bodie followed the movement with his own prick, not wanting to be bare of him for a moment, and then again, and again and...

" _Ray_ ," he whispered into Doyle's ear as he came, " _Ray_..."

o0o

They woke to the sound of horses outside the window again, lay there holding each other loosely for a moment, before moving carefully and quietly out of bed, sliding into clothes, and going to stand at the window, one either side. A thin moon was just encroaching on their view, more heavily cloud-scudded now, casting barely any light at all on the world below. They could see nothing really but shades of darkness upon darkness as far as their horizon stretched, to the vague bump of buildings that was Tusser's, and yet there was also no apparent movement, none at all.

Bodie glanced at Doyle, caught the tilt of his head, and they moved separately away from the window, through the night to the bedroom door and out and downstairs.

Somewhere the horses cried, higher-pitched now, ever more frantic, and there was the thundering of hooves.

They slipped outside, Doyle to the back, Bodie the front of the house, guns drawn. Still no movement in the night but the wind, nothing alive, nothing solid and crying out for help, just the wind... And yet he heard the horses still, as if they were there, right there beside the house, perhaps galloping round and around in panic, and still they whickered and snorted and huffed loudly in the night. 

He worked his way to the side of the house, staying near the wall, as alert as he'd ever been, because there was something there, _there was something there_...

_There_! No - it was Doyle, edging towards him around the house. They met, and Doyle's shoulder was warm against his as they leaned together for a moment against the cottage. Then Bodie tapped him on the shoulder and they set off again, the same directions, to meet at the other side.

And nothing again but the sound of the horses, and the wind against their faces, and Doyle's frustrated gesture with his gun. There was no one direction they could go, no one place that the cries came from, just the rage and fear of the animals, the desperate race of their hooves.

Bodie pulled Doyle's sleeve, led him back into the house. 

"They're in pain, Bodie - we've got to do _something_!"

He shook his head, feeling his heartbeat still loud, breathing heavily with his own frustration. "Like what? We can hardly go tearing off to look for them, can we? Maybe if we knew where we were going, but..."

"They've got to be out at Tusser's!"

"Nah - they're on the village side..."

They looked at each other, Bodie seeing himself mirrored in Doyle's anger, in his impatience at being so _uncertain_. Between them they were _never_ uncertain...

"Those horses are in _pain_ \- the RSPCA should...", Doyle began, and then blinked, and clicked his fingers loudly. "The vet! There's got to be a local vet, _he'll_ know where to look if we don't... Where's the phone book?"

The phone book was where they'd left it that afternoon in their hunt for local stud farms, equestrian centres, pony clubs. Bodie flicked through it, found a vet two villages over, and held it in front of Doyle who stood already gripping the phone, lips pursed as the noise of the horses came again, tied and tangled with the wind as if they were barely a wall away. 

"James Neville? You're the vet for Hicksmeath area? Look, I'm sorry to disturb you but I think this is important..."

Bodie listened to half the conversation, watching as Doyle's gaze flickered around the room, as he explained the situation, gave their address, then took the occasional breath to speak and was clearly unable to interrupt.

"I know what an animal in pain sounds like Mr Neville, and I... Yes, I know horses... That's right, Mollycross... No, we need..."

And that was all.

Bodie looked a question at him, at Doyle's glare of outrage, at the slam of phone back onto the cradle so that the bell rang sharply around them. 

"He won't come!"

"What? He's a vet - thought they were like us, _had_ to turn out?"

"Not this one apparently!" Doyle stalked the room, hands on hips, until he finally kicked at the couch and turned back to Bodie. "He says 'e _knows_ the case, that everything's alright, and that he'll come around tomorrow!"

"But there's..." Bodie paused to listen. Silence. Doyle stood in front of him, head bowed, looking defeated, and that was it, there was nothing else they could do.

o0o

It felt as if they'd only just dropped off when Bodie was woken to a hard banging on the back door of the cottage, the kind of urgent and continous _thud-thud_ that could not be ignored. He opened bleary eyes, saw the frown that hadn't left Doyle's face, even in sleep, deepen, become harsh and then overshadowed by the strength of his glare.

"Who the fuck..." Doyle began, and Bodie moaned, sat up and pulled on his trousers again.

In the end they went downstairs together, Doyle pausing to enter the spare room and rumple the bedding just in case. He was still there just behind Bodie, a grim shadow over his shoulder, when Bodie opened the door.

A tall thin man with a leather bag in one hand, and a Doberman at his feet smiled brightly at them. "Mr Doyle, is it?" he asked.

Bodie shook his head. "Who wants to know?"

"Name's Jim Neville. I'm the local vet. Said I'd call around this morning, let Mr Doyle know about the horses?"

Bodie blinked and looked at his watch. "It's 6.30am!"

"That's right. A cup of tea wouldn't go astray..."

Doyle pushed around him, one hand on Bodie's back, the other outstretched to Neville. "Ray Doyle. You'll better come in."

Bodie shook hands in his turn, managed to introduce himself, and then set about making tea. They still didn't have any decent milk.

"You know the horses?" Doyle began without any further niceties, and Bodie glanced at the vet to see his reaction.

Neville, however, just took off his coat, unwound his scarf, and nodded thoughtfully. "You say you've heard them twice now?"

"That's right, last night and tonight," Bodie said. "We've only been here the two nights."

"You've not heard them in the day?"

Bodie glanced at Doyle, caught his questioning look and reflected it back at the vet. "Only at night. Does it make a difference? Is it horses being transported somewhere?"

"We didn't hear a truck," Doyle said, "Why would they transport them on foot?"

"They wouldn't." Neville took the mug Bodie held out to him, and paused to blow on it, then raised it to him in salute. "Thank you - you've no idea what this means when you've had your arm up a horse's backside for two hours."

Bodie grimaced. "Any time..."

"You said you knew the horses?" Doyle repeated, shifting restlessly on his seat. 

"Yes. And you'll have to bear with me, because it's not a short story."

"Go on then," Bodie pulled his chair over beside Doyle's, facing Neville who sat at the end of the table. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, tea cupped between his hands, felt one of his knees knock into Doyle's and didn't move any further. 

"Alright. John Danby was a horseman who lived in this cottage, oh... nearly three hundred years ago now. He was a good horseman too, renowned through the whole area for what he could do with his pair, the speed they'd plough a field, the weight they could pull - and all at a single glance from John." The vet paused, took a mouthful of tea, and looked thoughtful for a moment. "Now, it was known around here that the only way someone could command horses like that was through a toad's bone."

"A toad's bone?" Doyle repeated, as if to be sure he'd heard correctly.

The vet just nodded. "To jade a horse - to make him obey without pause - a horseman had to catch a particular kind of toad, back then they used to call it "the toad that walked", and kill it at midnight under a full moon. Then he left it on a thorn bush until the bones were picked clean, and took it at midnight of the _next_ full moon down to the local stream, and threw it in. The next part was hardest. He had to watch those bones as they floated downstream and follow them, until the breast bone broke away from all the others and started floating in the opposite direction. When it did that he grabbed the bone from the water, and took it home with him - and there was his charm."

"And that made the horses obey him?"

"No - well, not exactly. That sealed his pact with the devil, who was thought to be running alongside him, tormenting him by the river to see if he was worthy - and the devil would then make sure the horses obeyed."

"Alright," Doyle said slowly, "So three hundred years ago John Danby sold his soul to the devil to become the best horseman in the Fens. What's that got to do with us?"

"Well, son..." Neville paused again. "The thing is... There aren't any horses around Hicksmeath. In fact the nearest is about six miles away, and that's barely twelve hands and belongs to Betty Stanton's little girl."

"I'm not following you," Bodie confessed. "So it's rustlers using this trail as their route to or from where they're keeping the horses?"

Neville shook his head slowly from side to side. "There's no rustlers around here."

"So... "Doyle interrupted, then paused himself. "So... what? You're saying that what we heard was a ghost horse? The devil? What?"

Neville shook his head. "No, I'm not saying that. I don't believe in ghosts and spirits and hobbledyhoys. But _there are no horses around here for at least a six mile radius_. So when you call me at half past one in the morning to tell me that there _are_..."

Bodie shook his head again. "Doesn't follow. Just because you know there aren't horses living here, doesn't mean we didn't hear them."

"No. No it doesn't." Neville sighed, tipping back his mug to finish the last dregs, and stood up, swinging his coat on. "But every summer I'm woken time and time again in the middle of the night by visitors who tell me that there are distressed horses somewhere near this cottage. I've been out here with the local police more times than I can count since I took over this practice. There are no horses, gentlemen, I promise you."

He nodded to them both genially enough, if somewhat warily now, picked up his bag and his scarf, and left.

They sat in silence for a moment, then Bodie raised his eyes to find Doyle staring at him. "It was the wind," he said, knowing he didn't believe it. "Must have been."

Doyle shook his head slowly. "Not both of us. Not two nights on the trot."

Bodie smiled grimly, waited in vain to hear Doyle laugh at his own joke. "Well there's got to be some explanation. Look, just because Neville doesn't know about the horses, doesn't mean they're not here, does it?"

"It's been going on for years, he said."

"So Letchworth's been _at_ it for years! Maybe he's covering up one crime with another. If he's ever done for the horses they won't be looking for anything else, right?"

Doyle shook his head again. "Why something that risky? Why not something simpler, less noticable?"

"Yeah, well," Bodie felt his temper rising, pushed himself away from the table and paced the floor to keep it in check, "He's not made it easy for us so far, has he!"

"But…"

"You telling me you believe that guff?" He shot a look at the door, Neville's vehicle disappearing throatily into the distance. "You, a copper?"

"I'm just saying…"

"Well don't, alright?"

Doyle was silent, arms folded in front of him, thumb worrying his lips thoughtfully. 

"We've got a dozen places still on Cowley's list to check out," Bodie persisted, "What's the betting this is a red herring to start with?"

"Wild goose chase," Doyle corrected him absently, so that Bodie rolled his eyes and shook his head. "I dunno. I've got a feeling…" He trailed off.

Bodie didn't want feelings, he had feelings enough of his own, and none of them involved traipsing endlessly around the fens watching Doyle get attached to the locals and their ghost stories.

"It's halloween," Doyle said, "Tonight. Let's see what happens."

o0o

They spent the day back in the car, wandering from village to village, hoping to hear something of Letchworth that might pull them away from the windswept and weird fens, might send them haring back to London and the normality of bombers and villains and political intrigue. But there was no word from Cowley, no recall, nothing.

"If you were Letchworth, where would _you_ go?" Doyle finally asked in disgust, as the sun dipped lower in the sky, and they paused for a moment, leaning on the bonnet after yet another fruitless twenty minutes chatting to some mad local in a dusty corner shop.

"Spain," Bodie said, which earned him a grin at least.

"We should suggest that to Cowley, see if he's up for it." Doyle suggested philosophically, squinting into the clouded sunlight. "No, on second thoughts - he wouldn't let us near the place, he'd have us in some miserable port on watching brief, waiting for him to come back."

"Or a trawler in the middle of the Atlantic," Bodie agreed glumly. "Come on, let's get back and get some kip, ready for tonight."

"Lazy sod – if you ate your greens you'd have more energy!"

"Don't want more energy if it means I have to eat that grass an' stuff ."

"Philistine."

"Spell it," he suggested, with a sideways glance at Doyle, ready for anything.

"B-E-R-K."

Bodie gave him a shove, avoiding retaliation by claiming the driver's side, sliding behind the wheel. He was wavering again, between frustration and contentment. Even if it was deadly dull driving around the middle of nowhere, it was good to spend the time with Doyle, to go home together at the end of the day. He wondered, for a brief moment, what it'd be like to do that in London, to cook together, collapse together, not have to worry about whether they'd spent too much time or too many nights apparently sleeping it off at a mate's flat rather than going home to their own beds. He ignored the other feeling, the scratching dread inexplicably there in his stomach. That was the fens and their two-headed inhabitants, there was nothing else it could be...

It started raining as they drove westwards, so that day turned to a misty night hours earlier than it should have done, and the roads seemed even more treacherous than usual. Bodie slowed to what felt like a tenth of his usual London race, peering uncomfortably through the windscreen. Doyle, apparently sprawled in his seat, vibrated tension at him the closer they got to Mollycross.

"Just one more clear night," he said, through gritted teeth, "That's all we needed."

"Give us better cover," Bodie suggested. "Get in, get out, go home."

"Home…" Doyle repeated, leaning his head back on the rest, breathing out. "Jo was going to call me this week, she'll have given up by now."

He _wasn't_ jealous. "Give her a ring tonight, from the pub."

"We're not _at_ the pub tonight! This isn't a bloody school outing."

"It's not going to take all night, is it? Why should it? In and out! The place'll be empty, Letchworth's probably miles away!"

Doyle shot him a look, Bodie felt it sear through him and his heart sank a little. He'd taunted fate by dreaming of happy families, and now here they were. A dark silence settled between them, shrouded by the sound of wet tarmac under their tyres, the dull roar of the engine. 

"Anyway, we've got a phone here. Something doesn't feel right," Doyle surprised him suddenly by saying as they turned into the lane to the cottage. He had one elbow on the windowsill, was raking his fingers through his hair and frowning. "There's something…"

"It's this place," Bodie said placatingly, letting the car slide up close to the cottage, leaving the engine running for a moment, "All this open space, 's not natural."

Doyle shook his head. "I dunno what it is, but it's making me… I dunno."

"More of a pain in the arse than usual?" If Doyle laughed it off, then maybe he could too…

"Nervous," Doyle said instead, paused and then opened his mouth as if he was going to carry on, didn't.

"You're just wound up from up sitting on yer bum all day," Bodie took them back to an old complaint, a familiar refrain. "You need to get out, get some exercise."

"Maybe…"

"Trust me – a quick run up the road tonight'll do you the world of good."

"You volunteering to take the fields?" Doyle asked, putting one hand on the door handle, poised to leap out and dash through the rain to the door. "Good of you mate…"

If it'd cheer Doyle up, bring them back to… to whatever it was… "What, and deprive you of the pleasure of all that wet grass, the adrenaline of falling into ditches filled with…alright, _go_!" He gave up, throwing himself out his own door and around the bonnet, fumbling for the doorkey as he ran. It wasn't hard rain, not good solid, honest rain, but somehow he didn't want to be out in it all the same, not even between car and cottage. Not tonight.

Bloody Doyle.

By the time he'd boiled the kettle and made two cups of tea, Doyle was on the telephone, sweet-talking Jo. Bodie slammed his mug down hard enough that it slopped over the sides, took his own upstairs and slammed the door for good measure.

o0o

It was even darker when he woke, and it was late, it must be. He'd pulled the blankets up, but hadn't bothered to get undressed, and he felt rumpled, slightly over-warm from the central heating, and even more out of sorts than before he'd fallen asleep. There was a strip of light from the hallway, under the door, and he could hear Doyle moving about downstairs. His watch read five past nine.

Time to make a move.

By the time he'd splashed his face with cold water, changed into his dark cords and pulled a black jumper over his poloneck, he felt more human. Doyle was only doing what they both did, after all, what they'd always done, he couldn't let it get to him. He plodded downstairs, stopped in the kitchen doorway.

"Ready?" he asked gruffly, in the general direction of Doyle who was sitting at the table, poring over an OS map. 

"As I'll ever be."

"How's it looking out there?"

"You'll see in a minute..." Doyle glanced at him, relented. "Still wet, and the wind's getting up."

Great.

"You should've woken me."

Doyle shrugged. "An hour either way's not likely to make much difference on a night like tonight."

"Yeah. Look, Ray..."

"Leave it, Bodie." 

"Can't we..." He stopped himself, feeling the weight of _something_ above them, around them, suffocating his words. _Can't they what?_ That wasn't the way the world worked, not his world, not their world. There was no _happily ever after_ , there was only ever _happily just for now_. "You still want to take the road?"

"We could both go that way, if…"

"Nah." They'd do it properly, find nothing, get it over with. "Let's just go, alright?"

Doyle nodded, stood up, and pulled the map towards him. "Looks like a straight run across the fields, you'll make it there before me. D'you want to take the outbuildings, leave the house until I get there?"

"Alright." It made sense. He reached for his jacket and holster, patted the heavy shape of the RT in his pocket, his lock pick set, his torch, and moved to the door. At the last minute he paused, turned back. "Ray – be careful."

Doyle looked up, held his gaze for a moment, and then nodded. "And you."

o0o

It was dark at the back of the house, and darker still on the other side of the low wall and towards Tusser's, though the misting rain had blown away with the wind. Now and then the crescent moon peered down through rushing clouds, too palely and too briefly to cast enough light to make walking safe. Bodie grimmaced and flicked on his torch, shining the beam down at the ground, keeping it covered with his hand. They might as well have walked in broad daylight as this, they'd still be seen coming for miles. _If_ there was anyone there to see anything. Letchworth was a canny bugger – but would even _he_ smuggle horses from what was supposed to be a deserted farmhouse?

His steps felt slow and heavy on the wet grass, smothered in the night, and there was a slight tilt in the field towards the drainage ditch, just as there had been on the road. He held the torch in his mouth for a moment, reaching into his jacket for his RT.

"4.5?"

Static buzzed at him, and even though he knew it was just Doyle fishing his own RT from whatever tight pocket held it, fumbling for the switch, he wanted to stop, to turn around and rush towards the road, to make sure he was okay.

_There's something..._

"4.5."

"Everything alright?"

"Fine. I'm coming up to the crossroads now – wait!"

"Doyle?"

Nothing.

"Ray!"

"Alright, keep your hair on, thought I saw something move."

_A fox_ , he told himself, _a lost cat_. "Saw what?" He'd reached a gate between two fields, paused.

A longer nothing this time, then another splutter of static. "Just the rain..."

Bodie looked up at the sky, at where the moon had vanished again. "No rain here..."

"No one likes a braggart..."

That was better. He tucked his torch away, vaulted over the gate, and pulled it out again. Two more like that and he'd be at Tusser's. "It rains on the wicked, Doyle," he said, as smugly as he could, and promptly tripped as his foot caught in a rabbit hole. The torch went flying from his hand, and he fell to his knees, gripping at the RT as if it could save him. Fuck.

The ground was _very_ wet, his fingers sinking into water, the cold sludge of it soaking through his clothes, and he sprang upright as quickly as he could. The torch had survived, long white beam still illuminating his path, and he picked it up, flashed it around. Grass, dark water of the ditch, more grass. He took a deep breath, trudged on again.

The world was still around him, practically thick with it. Storm coming, he supposed, and soon, if Doyle had wind and rain barely a mile away. Or was he somehow in the eye of it, in the calm centre? 

_There's something..._

Bloody Doyle. He clambered over the second gate more stiffly, not liking the way his trousers were sticking coldly to his legs. No lights at Tusser's though, no movement there. _In and out_ , get this over and be home in bed before midnight... 

Something caught his eye by the ditch,and he stopped again, swung his torch back and forth over the water. It mocked him, still and unmoving as ever. An animal maybe? Must be… He started to step closer, thought better of it and backed away again.

He strode on, and it started to rain again, more of the fine, nasty stuff, blowing on him and against him, insinuating its way beneath his collar and trickling coldly, unpleasantly down his back. He pulled at the fabric, hitching it up, stumbled again on an uneven patch of ground, and cursed. Worse than manoeuvres on Salisbury bloody Plain. The wind only blew a little harder.

"Doyle? Anything?" 

The RT crackled. 

"All quiet. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

"Nothing. Thought I saw someone, but…"

"Who'd be out here?" Bodie grumbled. "Should've made you take the fields."

The RT poured static at him.

"Doyle?"

A gust of wind slapped rain against his face, into his eyes, and he wiped at them with the back of his hand. There was the third gate, right there, no more now between him and…

Across the night, someone screamed.

Bodie whirled around, one hand on the gate, as the wind gusted the sound away from him – from behind him? To the right? From Tusser's, surely from Tusser's… He pulled himself over the bars of the gate, metal cold and slick against his hands, landed awkwardly on the ground and found himself slipping sideways, feet dangling for a moment over air above the ditch, and then he was down, and he was rolling, and the water was cold – so cold – and he was being pulled under, held beneath the water, his hands scrabbling in mud, in thick mud that _wanted him_ …

He broke the surface gasping, scrabbled for the bank, and lay there for a moment, breath harsh and strangely hot. The wind took that too, as if it was dragging his life away, _some fierce Maenad_ he thought vaguely, and pulled himself properly up to the field again. Christ, if he'd been wet before… But there was something going on at Tusser's, something bad, something wrong - _copper's nose_ Cowley had called it once, and Bodie could feel it now, deeper than scent or sound or scream. 

_There's something…_

He put a hand to the ground to push himself up, found he was clutching the RT again. 

"Doyle!"

Static.

Was it broken, or was he unheard?

The field seemed to glow suddenly around him, and he grasped the bars of the gate again, steadied himself, looked up and then down. The clouds had torn themselves away from the moon, stars shining through the ragged gap, and light, and _he could see_. There – his torch, lying still on the path, switched off or broken… 

_The devil's luck_ his da would have said, as he scooped it up, thumbed the switch, and the grass was again turned green in its narrow beam. Doyle would have looked at him in disbelief, _jammy sod_ , and given him a shove to get him moving… 

Move.

He was cold, shivering, but there'd no doubt be a heater somewhere at Tusser's, and electricity, and there'd be Doyle…

"3.7 to 4.5."

A crackle, and a deep whine, and then…

"Bodie?"

"Ray! What the hell's happening?"

"I've no idea, there's people everywhere, I can hear them shouting but I can't _see_ anything…" 

"What d'you mean, people?" Was that where the scream had come from?

"I dunno, they're out there in the fog somewhere, and there's flashes of lights, but…"

"It's clear."

"What?"

He looked up at the sky again, saw stars. There'd _been_ rain, he thought vaguely. "There's no fog, Ray, what are you on about?"

"Maybe not where you are, but it's like pea soup here." He sounded frustrated, and slightly wheezy, out of breath …

"You alright?"

"I dunno… Yeah." The RT crackled again. "Think I must be coming down with something, sore throat…"

"You want to turn back?"

A cough. "No, nearly there. Past the crossroads now… Christ… _I didn't do it!_ "

"What, only just…Didn't do what? Doyle?" No answer. It wasn't right, something wasn't right. And surely Doyle should have been nearly at the house by now, while he'd been stumbling in fields and falling in the ditch.

He reached the first outbuilding of the farm, slid into the shelter of its walls, a crumble of dust against his fingers, and there was Doyle's voice over the RT again.

"3.7 – there's a car headed this way from Tusser's, driving at a hell of a pace."

"Our friend Dai?"

"Dunno," Doyle said, his voice a bare rasp across the airwaves, "Can't see yet, 's just headlights."

Fuck, if they'd missed Letchworth Cowley'd kill them… Bodie slid more carefully along the side of the building, around the corner and into the lee of the next wall – the corrugated tower. He blinked, squinted through the loose joins. There was light flickering inside, firelight perhaps, a deep rich orange. He sidled further along, found a gap in the metal where the sheeting had pulled away from the frame, crouched down to peer through. There was light alright, solid and electric on the other side of what looked like a high wooden wall a dozen feet inside. 

He was just about to try squeezing through the gap when his RT hissed at him, and he flicked the switch. "3.7."

Panting breath. "The bloody car's crashed – horsebox behind it – back at the crossroads – I'm going back…"

"Doyle!"

"I'll call it in…"

He took a moment to curse under his breath, then levered the metal sheeting open slightly further, and cautiously forced his way through. He paused, listened. There was a rumble of voices from behind the partition, now and then raised to an angry shout, but the wind was too loud above it to make out words, or even how many individuals there were, creaking and groaning and pulling at the tower. The light flickered too, dull brown – dull orange – dull yellow – just the electricity, barely holding on above the storm...

He'd see who it was and then get himself back down the road, find Doyle…

There was cover enough amongst the trappings of the farm, bits of machinery and barrels and a scattering of saddlery kept tidily on frames – and wasn't that interesting – for him to get to the wooden partition without any problem. He tried to peer again through a knothole, but it angled downwards, and he could see only the licking orange flames of a fire, a dim blur of smoke, and was that two, perhaps three pairs of trouser-clad legs? He couldn't see, couldn't see clearly... where had the lights gone?

_...find someone to take the blame!_

The wind roared and screamed its way around the building now, so that metal crashing and scraping on metal drowned out everything else, and the place seemed to shake and sway around him. How safe was it, he wondered, creeping along the wall, how many storms had it withstood, how close was it to tumbling down around him? See who it was in there, Letchworth or Dai or American bloody hoteliers, and then he'd get out, get…

There was something behind him.

He spun, a shout in his ears, some pale face above him, but it was too late, because higher still the wooden frame of the building shuddered and finally tilted, there was a shriek of wind and of metal and of pain across the back of his head, and then there was nothing.

o0o

He woke to a world turned black, to darkness and cold and a pounding in his head, and everywhere else to absolute stillness. Nothing moved. He winced, sniffed and coughed, and that at least brought a stirring of the wreckage around him, a jarring through his own body, and more pain.

He was still alive, then.

And it was dark because it was night not because he was blind, and it was cold because it was October, and… and because he was buried under a building, and… 

Doyle?

He had to get out first, then he could find Doyle… there'd been a car crash… Not Doyle though.

There'd been fire, a fire – here in the… No smoke, no flames… unless he was blind.

He _wasn't_ blind.

No smoke anyway, he couldn't smell smoke so there was no fire, must've been smothered, put out... the electric gone? He took a breath, tried to ignore the bashed feeling of his head, and moved his arms. No pain, or at least no agony, but barely a foot above him was cold, rough iron and it wouldn't budge when he gave it a shove. He was lying on his back, so he reached out sideways, and there was the remains of the wooden wall, and what felt like a couple of metal drums. He managed to push one a few inches back, but above him something creaked alarmingly, shifted and fell to strike his metal covering, so that when he raised his arms again there was barely six inches of space. Shit.

Wait then, Doyle would find him.

How long had he been here, under the fallen tower, _in the stillness of the night and the blackness of…?_ Must be poetry that, but he couldn't remember the rest of it. It was cold, he was cold… could do with that fire now, a warm blanket of… Where was Doyle?

o0o

There were voices in his dreams, and a scream, and the cold wet _down_ of the ditch, only this time there was no reprieve, no reaching up because he couldn't reach, _and she shouldn't have gone that way, they were always telling her, she should have gone by the road, but Mr Tusser was a_ bad _man and she'd just wanted to get away, had just run away_ …

_John Danby, you're a liar…_

_The cold took him, the cold sank into him, and he was made of cold_ – though he mustn't shake, he mustn't move, because it would bring the tower down – _and so he didn't, he let it leach from him, let it soak into him, sunk down and down, and rested on the mud, in the mud…_

He felt warmer then, cocooned, and once he'd lain in bed like that, on his stomach, smothered around with blankets and pillows, and the sleepy bliss of Doyle lying flat on top of him, breath warm against his ear, skin caressed by skin with every flutter of _in_ and _out_ and both of them alive to fight another day and to to fuck and to wake up at dawn and do it again, and make tea and curse Cowley and…

o0o

"Bo- _die_!"

_A warmth of a shout, a life of a shout…_

He turned his head, felt pain rush through him like fire, _too hot, too hot_ and he moaned.

"Bodie!"

There was a crunching and shrieking of metal and wood and the world around him, then a rush of cold air, and when he opened his eyes there were stars in the sky again. 

"Doyle?" The word was a bare rasp of his voice, so he tried again. "Ray?"

"Bodie!" More cold air, and a darker shape in front of him, stars gone and he didn't care. "What the hell did you think you were doing? Gave me a bloody heart attack seeing the building down like that." 

"Other people…" He struggled to sit, to look around them. Doyle's torch flashed an arc, came back to rest on the detritus beside him.

"What other people… here, let's get you up… You alright?"

"Yeah…" He tried to remember, to catch his breath. Other people here... there... "Car crash?"

"Local fuzz are down there, Cowley's on his way in a chopper. It was Letchworth – Letchworth and the bloody vet." Doyle wrenched at a piece of sheeting still covering Bodie's legs, threw it violently to one side. "Had a racehorse in the back, it'll have to be put down."

"You said there were other people – back at the crossroads, before the car…" He took Doyle's proferred hand, let himself be levered up, other hand clutching the back of his spinning head. He swayed, staggered, was caught by Doyle and held upright.

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah…" he said again, "Take more than that…"

"I tell you what," Doyle was stroking his back, looking around them, whites of his eyes bright and wide in the moonlight, "You were bloody lucky they made these things out of balsa wood and piano wire – not exactly built to last."

"Could've lasted one more day…"

Doyle smiled at that, in the moonlight, and Bodie found himself smiling back. Doyle had come. "You said you heard people. Back then?"

"Yeah… You're wet."

"Fell in the ditch. Stop changing the subject."

"I dunno… It sounded like people, shouting, lots of people. And lights, like fires in the fields."

"Marsh lights?"

"Maybe…"

" _You_ feeling alright?" he asked, remembering something else, "Your throat?" Doyle was always deep-voiced, but he'd sounded rough over the RT.

Doyle lifted a hand to his neck, rubbed it self-consciously. In the distance a siren rose into the night, and they both turned towards the road, saw a tiny blue light flashing its way away from them, off to find machines and medicine and doctors.

"I dunno," Doyle said again, "Felt like something was choking me…" He trailed off, stared into the distance for a moment, then up at the bright crescent of the moon. "Imagination – too many stories from the locals, wind and rain playing tricks on me. Maybe I heard cars on the main road. Look, let's get you into the farmhouse, you're frozen and wet and you're shaking."

He _was_ shaking now, a steady tremble through his limbs that echoed the pounding in his head and reverberated right through him. 

"Letchworth was dead when I got there – they'd ploughed right into the ditch at the old crossroads, tipped over into the water. They might save Neville." 

"We were right about the horses. Horse." Just one horse, all that noise? 

"Maybe there _were_ more," Doyle suggested, pausing them at the door of the house, moving his hand from Bodie's back to reach into his jacket and pull out his skeleton keys, "On the other nights." He didn't look at Bodie, and Bodie didn't want him to. 

"Yeah." More… "There were other people in the tower!" Weren't there? "And fire…" 

"No one there now, mate, trust me I pulled half the building away looking for you." 

And he would have, Bodie knew, just as the same as if it'd been Doyle lost somewhere underneath the wreckage. 

Doyle flicked a switch and the hallway was flooded with light, solid and bright and real and blinding. They stood a moment, blinking, and then Bodie pulled Doyle to him, didn't care that he felt like shit and he couldn't feel his fingers or his feet, because they were both alive and Letchworth wasn't, and George Cowley was on his way. The world was where it should be. 

"Back to normal," he said, and wasn't surprised when Doyle laughed against his shoulder. 

"What, smelling like a sewer and covered in half the canals of East Anglia? Have I got this to look forward to in my old age, then?" 

Bodie's heart skipped, and he took a sharp breath to calm it. "Still not sure where you are, Doyle?" 

A sudden rumble swept the house, helicopter rotors cutting their quiet and tossing it back out to the night. Bodie felt himself released, tugged by one arm through rooms to a kitchen, where Doyle scrabbled in drawers for matches, lit every ring on the cooker, and then opened the oven and lit that full-blast too. There was no furniture in the room, so he upended a bucket that was beside the sink, and pushed Bodie to sit on it, in front of the slowly warming oven, crouched down and peered into his eyes. 

"Why Doyle..." 

"Shut up, Bodie. I know exactly where I am." Warm fingers stroked around his eyes. "You're probably concussed, you know. Let me see." 

He grunted in lieu of nodding, crossed his eyes at Doyle and wished he hadn't, then let them fall shut. He could be tired, in front of Doyle. "Bloody strange night." 

"Bloody strange place." Doyle seemed to hesitate, then Bodie felt him lean forward, warm lips on his cheek, lingering and then gone. "You'll probably live." 

He opened his eyes again, managed to smile, though he suddenly felt like crying. "Might need keeping an eye on." 

"Oh yeah? Get out your little black book, make some poor girl suffer?" 

Bodie shook his head slowly, minutely, held Doyle's gaze with his own, carefully in place. "Nah – rather make you suffer. You can nurse me slowly back to health." 

Their night stretched, wrapped around them, together in a kitchen in a strange farmhouse, far away, then Doyle nodded and smiled from the inside out, and Bodie smiled back, again and broadly. 

"Mental health? Might take a while, that." Doyle suggested, tilting his head. 

One more question, just one... "Still got Jo waiting, haven't you?" 

"Nah," Doyle shook his head in turn, "Got all the time we need." 

Better than normal. 

There was a clatter of feet and voices outside, the front door slammed open, and the rush of life and George Cowley swept in to them. 

"Bodie! Doyle!" 

Doyle winked, then raised his voice to shout. "In here, sir!" 

Cowley stopped in the doorway, took in the scene. "Bodie - are you alright?" 

"Never been better, sir." 

Cowley eyed him suspiciously for a moment, then turned to Doyle. "What about you, 4.5?" 

"Er... yessir... How's Neville?" 

"Lost his leg, almost certainly. We won't be able to talk to him for a while." 

"No sir, sorry sir." 

"Are you?" He glared at them together for a moment, stepped further into the room with a disapproving glance at the cooker. "Aye, well, he's already implicated one or two others in the village, so we can pull them in. And I suppose you did find Letchworth - we didn't have his real name on record." 

"Real name?" Doyle frowned. 

"Well, Tusser, of course - I thought you'd worked that out?" 

"Of course," Bodie interrupted, before Doyle could drop them in it any further. They'd have realised sooner or later. And now he was dead, killed beside Mollycross Gibbet. 

Coincidence, just coincidence. 

"Through rain, sleet and storm..." he began, daring a triumphant grin at the room in general and Cowley in particular. 

"Is he concussed?" Cowley frowned, turned to Doyle. 

"Well... probably, but..." 

"We did," Bodie interrupted indignantly, "Like the mounties, always get our man - through rain and wind and dead of night.." 

"That's Royal Mail innit?" Doyle muttered, reaching out to turn off the gas and to take Bodie by the hand and pull him to his feet again. Bodie frowned at him, and he hurried on, "But it was pretty thick out there, sir." 

"Soaked through," Bodie added, deciding not to mention the ditch. "And it brought that lot right down - if that's not a storm I dunno what is." 

Cowley frowned again, "No lads, there's been no storm tonight, we made good time from Town. Perfect weather for flying, in fact. And not a broomstick in sight, before you say anything." He smiled briefly, but it was relieved and it was meant for them. "Now let's get you home." 

Bodie smiled obediently back, took a breath, and tightened his arm around Doyle, under guise of being concussed and unstable. It didn't matter, after all. 

Home. _Better than normal_ , for now and for tomorrow and for afterwards as well. 

"Hobbling all the way, sir," he said, and they followed George Cowley out, under the thin silver light of the crescent moon.

__31st October 2009_ _


End file.
